A Friday afternoon post over at City Paper's Young and Hungry site broke the news of a liquor license application for a "multipurpose facility" by the name of District Winery, saying that it would have "450 seats (with a total capacity for 750) plus dancing, a 100-seat summer garden, and a wine pub."

And that it would be at 385 Water St., SE.

Which is pretty cool news, except that right now there is no building with an address of 385 Water St., SE.

There were theories that it would be the first hint of retail leasing in the under-construction Arris, which is indeed in the 300 block of Water, but is on the north side of the street and so would have to be an even-numbered address.

The Lumber Shed is 301 Water--if all of the retail spaces in that building weren't spoken for, the notion of just a fat-fingering of the address could have been assumed.

But, 385 Water... Hmmm....

Many of you may not have been around back in 2009 when Forest City received approvals for its plans for Phase 2 of the Yards Park. This included approving the remaking of the Lumber Shed as a glass-enclosed retail pavilion--and also included the plans for two additional retail pavilions on what is now open lawn space between the Shed and 4th Street SE.

The drawings you see here are from 2009 and have actually been on my Yards Park and Lumber Shed pages since then--they show various views of all three pavilions, including a view from a deck on the easternmost pavilion looking toward the west with the Shed and other pavilion visible.
(Click to embiggen.)

The larger, eastern pavilion, dubbed P2B (because this is Parcel P) would have a footprint of about 10,300 square feet, while the smaller middle one's footprint would be about 6,300 square feet. Each of them would be less than 40 feet high and would have "open roof terraces on the second story for outdoor dining." And, as the drawings show, they would have much the same glass-and-concrete look as the Lumber Shed does.

And it could certainly be possible that the larger eastern one could have an address of 385 Water Street. And it looks sizeable enough for a venture looking for 450 seats with capacity for 750, plus dancing.

Forest City, as always, makes no comment on tenant-related information when there is no signed lease. And so it's also interesting that District Winery (which City Paper says appears to be from the same folks behind the Brooklyn Winery in New York) has made the move to apply for a liquor license before any lease has been signed.

We Shall See on all of this, including what any potential timeline might be for the construction of one or both of these new pavilions, but at least it means there would appear to be some definite leasing interest for these spaces. Either that or I am terribly off base with all this pondering.

UPDATE: All that pondering, and I could have just read that yes, it is indeed a new buildingbeing planned."Plans are still in the early stages, putting an opening at least two years away[.]" (h/t @JES)

ZoolanderANDtheBoYz says: (5/2/15 4:31 PM)I guess instead of building two buildings. They will end up building one big building that can accommodate 15K square foot.

JD says: (5/2/15 4:32 PM)Not necessarily. Note that I said "footprint" square footage, which didn't account for two floors or should be considered equal to total available retail square footage per building.

JES says: (5/3/15 4:30 PM)I'm wondering if they'll go with the same kind of modern glass exterior of the lumber shed, or if they'll go with something more rustic, given the use. Time will tell I guess.

Westnorth says: (5/4/15 2:24 PM)And cue the complaints about "them" paving over "our" precious parks... If I were Forest City, I would have left the site as a gravel lot or maybe seeded it with tallgrass prairie (nice to look at, uninviting to walk upon, mowable for occasional special events).

Interesting question about the facade. Retailers don't get many chances to do a build-to-suit in the city, so I'd expect a well-capitalized operation to seize the chance. Anyhow, this operation's a great match for the space!

JD says: (5/4/15 2:27 PM)I am not sure how much they can change the design of the new pavilions without sparking a new zoning review. (not saying that would prevent it, just pondering that the Lumber Shed-like designs already have approvals)

JD says: (5/4/15 2:54 PM)Any of you out there work for USDA? Was there a link to my site in some sort of internal communication today? I'm showing a massive bump of hits from USDA this morning.

JD says: (5/4/15 4:27 PM)LOL. Actually, after further research it appears to be a rogue machine somewhere in USDA, one that hit my home page close to 700 times this morning.

The fact that it didn't crash the site at least makes me think well of the new server!

JD says: (5/4/15 4:28 PM)And to the person that wrote me in reference to this, I tried to reply, but you must have typo'ed your e-mail address. But the gist of my reply was don't worry, it won't be counting against you. :)

JD says: (5/5/15 9:07 AM)Copying from another thread, the overhead Yards Park rendering also gives another view of the pavilions and gives a sense of their footprints:

The two buildings would be between the Lumber Shed and the 4th Street parking lot. There's currently a big grassy area there (actually, two of them). The two buildings won't take up the entire lawn, but look at this shot to see where I'm talking about.

Yards parcel L-2. Construction of foundation and underground parking garage for new 11 story multi-family mixed used residential building at 227 Tingey Street SE as part of development of Parcel L at the Yards